Devon’s going under the knife on the 10th of this month and then has a 2 week recovery after. I “think” last time he was discharged 48 hours after the surgery. Or at least that’s how long the cream puffs lasted…
I think Hollywood hit on a point that could work well. Consider instead of doing ‘one’ D&B, do one a month or every other month. Doing multiple would allow the time to be flexed to provide a ‘best time’ for different time zones. Yes, the OG D&B was at 7:30 pm eastern time. Great for tradition where there was a physical presence at a yearly scheduled event, an event where few from across the pond could/would attend.
Suppose for discussion we do the first LSC D&B scheduled for 7:30 pm eastern time, two months later (allow time for new builds) the time is for 7:30 mountain time. Two months later at 12:30 pm eastern time (to allow the western European folks) an opportunity to participate at a time not in the middle of their night.
I realize that this will change the dynamic some as we will see a varied group for each, Then there will be folks who will try to attend all to virtually meet folks they only know by forum posts. This could be an opportunity to expand the large scale hobby as well by inviting folks from other scales to visit.
My last thought is that maybe BD (if he is so inclined) could look into getting an LSC Zoom account that would be open to LSC members. NOT paid for out of BD’s pocket, we would need to pitch in for the cost of such. I am not sure how much an account would cost, but it would also open up for non-scheduled gatherings of smaller groups of LSC members. The logistics of this thought may not be practical, but food for thought.
FWIW.
Bob,
I like your ideas if a semi monthly get together.
I think we have enough available zoom account access between all of us that we don’t need to purchase one. I will add I’ve got access to one as well.
My last thought is that maybe BD (if he is so inclined) could look into getting an LSC Zoom account that would be open to LSC members. NOT paid for out of BD’s pocket, we would need to pitch in for the cost of such. I am not sure how much an account would cost,
Zoom is free for 45 minute meetings of a few people. For a proper meet, it is $14.99/month, which allows unlimited numbers for unlimited time. I’m still paying the 14.99 even though I only use it once every 3 months to talk to family.
Zoom also supports phone-in as well as video, so you can participate via phone if you don’t want to see - but that would be counterproductive for a Drag-and-Brag.
The biggest problem I see is that someone has to be “host” and to start/control the ‘meeting’. It’s an easy job, but it is the person who owns the subscription, so they have to be present.
Pete Thornton said:
My last thought is that maybe BD (if he is so inclined) could look into getting an LSC Zoom account that would be open to LSC members. NOT paid for out of BD’s pocket, we would need to pitch in for the cost of such. I am not sure how much an account would cost,
Zoom is free for 45 minute meetings of a few people. For a proper meet, it is $14.99/month, which allows unlimited numbers for unlimited time. I’m still paying the 14.99 even though I only use it once every 3 months to talk to family.
Zoom also supports phone-in as well as video, so you can participate via phone if you don’t want to see - but that would be counterproductive for a Drag-and-Brag.
The biggest problem I see is that someone has to be “host” and to start/control the ‘meeting’. It’s an easy job, but it is the person who owns the subscription, so they have to be present.
Not an issue here. I have a paid account (my wife hosts a meeting every month and we decided to pay for it -NO way can those ladies be limited in talking time!!! (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-foot-in-mouth.gif)) I would be happy to host anytime, any date. (I AM retired, so I am generally available (OK, Thursday IS an exception!)
The $14 plan is limited to 100 people and 30 hours a month.
The account I use via my work is way more expensive and hosts a lot more people…
But I’m not sure that we would even get 100 people to show.
My record so far has been 350+ people in a general membership union meeting. That was a bit difficult to manage unless we used Roberts Rules of Order…
Craig Townsend said:
The $14 plan is limited to 100 people and 30 hours a month.
The account I use via my work is way more expensive and hosts a lot more people…
But I’m not sure that we would even get 100 people to show.
My record so far has been 350+ people in a general membership union meeting. That was a bit difficult to manage unless we used Roberts Rules of Order…
I can see it lasting 3 hours (with about 5 folks attending)…but I bet we don’t get more than 20 people total. That was the nice thing at York - people just stopped by. Not sure Zoom can replicate that experience.
So, here are the “official” limits for Zoom Pro:
- Host up to 100 participants
- Increase participants up to 1,000 with Large Meetings add-on
- Group meetings for up to 30 hours
- Social Media Streaming
- 1 GB Cloud Recording (per license)
Not sure what “Social Media Streaming” is…but I doubt that we would exceed ANY of these restrictions…
To be truly “virtual” you need to be able to divide up in little groups (like you DO in reality) and come and go as you please…(Man, I sure THOUGHT THAT group was boring, but I’m going back now that I found out what boring REALLY is! (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-foot-in-mouth.gif))
According to the interwebs, Zoom Social Media Streaming is:
You can stream a Zoom webinar or meeting live on Facebook to your Facebook timeline or a group or page that you are an admin for. This allows your participants to join via Zoom or viewers to watch and comment on Facebook Live.
Not so sure that’s useful for us.
I will have access to the paid account, so we have the venue, just need to schedule it!
Bob McCown said:
I will have access to the paid account, so we have the venue, just need to schedule it!
How 'bout …uuuuhhhhhhhhhh…mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…Now (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
If I might make a suggestion. Let’s not go overboard and try to schedule or set expectations for a whole series of these things. Let’s make one work and see if we like it, then we can talk about how to do more. I’m personally all in favor of doing these somewhat regularly but don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. We are going to have some hiccups and things that will work well and other things that won’t work so well, and it might be good to get some experience before we go crazy.
If Devon’s procedure is 2/10 and he has a 2 week recovery, then the Saturday’s that work are 2/27, 3/6, 3/13, 3/20. Seems likely that the Mik winners will be ready to be announced in about 2 weeks from now, so if we wanted to be close to Mik we would choose 2/27.
If we are going for 3 hours and letting people drift in and out (which seems reasonable to me) then maybe the best is 7:30 eastern and we can look at changing times up if we do more.
So what if we choose 2/27 or 3/6 at 7:30pm Eastern time?
Or some other suggestion that is better? I’m personally pretty flexible…
Oh, and if it were up to me, I’d delay the announcement of the Mik winners until the Drag & Brag so we can fete the winners and it can be an award show for the first few minutes.
And maybe 7pm makes more sense.
So if that works for folks then maybe 7pm on 2/27 with Dave T announcing winners at 7:15 (all eastern time).
My $.02
Jim Rowson said:
Oh, and if it were up to me, I’d delay the announcement of the Mik winners until the Drag & Brag so we can fete the winners and it can be an award show for the first few minutes.
And maybe 7pm makes more sense.
So if that works for folks then maybe 7pm on 2/27 with Dave T announcing winners at 7:15 (all eastern time).
My $.02
Jim, thanks for starting this discussion, and I’m looking forward to whatever gets put together.
Here’s my $.01 (and I’ve probably overlooked a lot of stuff, but here goes anyway):
If timed for the regular March D&B, waiting 2 months for the MIK reveal might seem a long wait. So FWIW, I’ll throw out an alternative, and suggest an initial “MIK Awards Night” to focus on that and the participants. Each would have the floor for a bit to share (if desired), which seems different than the usual (unstructured) nature of the D&B.
It would also be an opportunity to test drive the tech before the March D&B.
If the D&B date is moved up, please ignore all the foregoing… But if not, and if there is any kind of actual ECLSTS (even if just a smaller affair in Annapolis, local to Star), perhaps there’s a way for some of us to attend that, and post some video at the virtual D&B.
Thoughts?
Cliff
Yeah, Cliff, I agree that waiting for the end of March for the Mik results seems too long. That’s why I suggested 2/27. As I understand it from previous years, the Mik timeline for this year would be something about like:
- End of building is tomorrow 2/7
- Glamour photos posted by 2/13
- Votes in by 2/20
- That gives Dave T 6 days to tabulate the results and announce at 2/27
I’m afraid that any Zoom-ish meeting is going to be more structured than a face-to-face because we can really only have 1 conversation going at a time. So having a vague agenda (letting whatever Mik builders want to show off their model for example) seems useful. Future meetings could be similar but without the award show involved. Whoever has a model to share signs up for “open mic” somehow and takes the floor briefly, then folks can comment.
Without some sort of structure, I’m betting that it will be complete chaos as everybody tries to talk at once. We are not the most rule-following bunch…
Anyway, I guess I’m up to $.04 by now
Jim,
Thanks for the further insights.
Maybe the “future meeting,” with signup open mic, could potentially be an ECLSTS / 2nd D&B meet, if anything actual happens along those lines.
Jim Rowson said:
Yeah, Cliff, I agree that waiting for the end of March for the Mik results seems too long. That’s why I suggested 2/27. As I understand it from previous years, the Mik timeline for this year would be something about like:
- End of building is tomorrow 2/7
- Glamour photos posted by 2/13
- Votes in by 2/20
- That gives Dave T 6 days to tabulate the results and announce at 2/27
I’m afraid that any Zoom-ish meeting is going to be more structured than a face-to-face because we can really only have 1 conversation going at a time. So having a vague agenda (letting whatever Mik builders want to show off their model for example) seems useful. Future meetings could be similar but without the award show involved. Whoever has a model to share signs up for “open mic” somehow and takes the floor briefly, then folks can comment.
Without some sort of structure, I’m betting that it will be complete chaos as everybody tries to talk at once. We are not the most rule-following bunch…
Anyway, I guess I’m up to $.04 by now
Maybe even up to a wooden nickel! (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-foot-in-mouth.gif)(BUT, LOTS of good ideas!)
It will be VERY tough to have a meeting - it’s very easy to talk over others, plus there’s the aspect of how much bandwidth you have to your computer; every one of us will be out of sync. It’s as if we need a “Take a number” app…
WHERE IS NOEL, WHEN WE NEED HIM?
years, many years ago Noel had something similar running.
i would like to hear his thoughts about this new idea.
As a moderator on Zoom, I can mute everyone except one person, so we could do that as people present, then open it up maybe after each presentation?
Bob McCown said:
As a moderator on Zoom, I can mute everyone except one person, so we could do that as people present, then open it up maybe after each presentation?
And, MAYBE, we allow folks to go to OTHER zoom accounts and join THAT group… YEAH, getting WAY ahead of myself here… we should be so lucky to have one group of more than two people! (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-foot-in-mouth.gif)